Technique, practice, and equipment

[CindiSue]

I asked a lot of questions last year so thought I would share now.

I've been skiing about 2 years now. I read books, went to classes, read posts here and asked questions. I went to a boot fitter and got new boots that actually fit. I was "getting it" on blues, but it was really a struggle on blacks because I kept picking up too much speed in the turns, then was constantly scrubbing it off. I found a lot of ways to do this more efficiently, to compensate for the problem, but it just wasn't right. There was no rhythm, it didn't flow. I didn't look natural. I was constantly concentrating too much and working too hard to make it happen!

A couple months ago I realized that I had skied all day standing on my toes, and it was going way better. So I went back to my boot fitter and he put a 4mm lift on the back of my boot.
O M G !

Night and day difference! Immediately I was able to go down any slope without picking up too much speed. Skiing (at least on groomers) became effortless. I could go anywhere, do anything! I ski all kinds of conditions now, and without constantly concentrating to make it happen. A few weeks ago I actually zoned out for a minute and didn't remember skiing over to where I was. Wow.

All I can say is "Yippee!"

I'm sure all that hard work paid off. A lot of skiing seems to be just spending the hours doing it. But man, I sort of wish I had avoided about a years worth of the struggle!

 

[abc]

I share your frustration. I had a similar ahha moment 2 years ago, also had to do with the boot!

It's easy to say a good boot fitter will be your best friend. But a lot of times, it's not obvious. So ideally it's up to the skier to try different stance to find what works. Sadly, we're not typically encouraged to try different boot and ski positions.

It wouldn't surprise me half of the terminal blue skiers had some bio-mechanical issues preventing them from executing techniques properly.

 

[vanhoskier]

It wouldn't surprise me half of the terminal blue skiers had some bio-mechanical issues preventing them from executing techniques properly.

I agree. Jeannie Thoren does a great talk about women skiers and our biomechanical differences compared to men. Ski manufacturers have been catching on in incorporating differences for women, but I think some bootfitters are still a little behind the 8 ball.

 

[litterbug]

I'm so glad that it was only four months before I figured out that my alignment was far enough off to keep me from every getting really comfortable; if I didn't focus, my right leg kept getting away from me. I worked this out by re-reading the first part of Ski The Whole Mountain and actually trying a test to tell whether you need adjustments to your gear to fix your stance. A simple change in the angle of my right cuff made it all better and my skiing got easier, well balanced, and much less tiring. Now I need to go back to the bootfitter for a more permanent fix because the cuff is just a bandaid without new insoles or some other bootfitter-ish solution.

You might also get a lot by a private lesson, if you can afford it, to see if there are other easily-fixed things in your stance that you could work on.

As for the toe thing, by definition it puts you in the back seat. Fortunately for me I was able to fix that by closing my ankle joint (e.g. making the angle between leg and foot smaller), loosening my shoulders and pushing my very well-padded pelvis forward in the turn. Now my weight is on my toes only at the very start of the turn, which I think is the way it's supposed to be.